The Boundary

A Memory of Royston.

If you look at the photograph of The Wells, on the crossroad that leads up the hill to Midland Road, the first shop on the corner used to be Barclays Bank but before then it was a tobacco shop and sweet shop combined. In the 1920s it was considered an offence for young lads and lasses to stay on the street and even if they were not causing bother if they hung around in groups it was more than likely that some Police officer would use his authority and think nothing of prodding the lads with his truncheon; sometimes lads would land up in court. Anyway, the shopkeeper on the corner decided to have something done to stop the Police from moving these lads on. Having checked out what was legal, he had some iron foundry make up a strip of metal with the words 'Boundary Line' wrote in bold letters. This was then placed into the tarmac some 4 feet from his shop window. Now when lads and lasses came to his shop he told them that if they desired to hang about at night, whether the shop was open or closed, they were free to stand there. One night as the shop was getting ready for closing as many as a dozen kids were outside the shop. The cocky policeman came along ordering these youths to move along. They were about to move on when the shopkeeper came out and said to the lads that as far as he was concerned he had invited them onto his property and should they wish to stay, there was nothing the policeman could do. The policeman said that he had power and authority to move anyone from loitering and once again ordered the lads to move on. It was then that the shopkeeper pointed down to where the newly implanted steel boundary line was laid. The policeman was told that the boundary line some four feet away from the shop window was private property and that through him getting a court order to give that area sanctuary status, just like a church, the Police were not allowed to make arrests or to move people along. I would not like to put a bet on it right now, as I have not lived there or been by on foot for quite some years, but it was still there some 35 years ago, a little worse for wear but one could still see the boundary line, and as it was passed by law to be a place of sanctuary, who knows if the law still stands today. After the shop premises was Barclays Bank it became a chemist and then a shoe shop, or was it a shoe shop then a chemist? I do recall when I was in my twenties a new surgery was built just before the Wells Crossroads. Dr Gothard and Dr Tappesier were the doctors and then after that a Dr Brown.